Visual C++ browse information

Question

I am trying to figure out what the browse information (.sbr files) is used for but find only references how to create it. So what is it for?

Thanks Dima

Answer 1

Read here (Visual C++ Team Blog: IntelliSense History, Part 1)

Capturing information about a C or C++ program’s structure has been around for a very long time in Microsoft’s products. Preceding even Visual C++ 1.0, the compiler supported generating program information through .SBR and .BSC files. (Note: The compiler in Visual C++ 1.0 was already version 8, so the command line tools had been around a while already.) The SBR files contain reference and definition information for a single translation unit that the compiler generates as it compiles. These SBR files are combined in a later step using the BSCMAKE tool to generate a BSC file. This file can then be used to look at many different aspects of a program: reference, definitions, caller-callee graphs, macros, etc.